


Today

by iola17



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: 5x13, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, Past Patrick/Rachel, Past Relationship(s), Pre-episode: The Hike, Romance, Stream of Consciousness, The Hike, mentions of rachel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 20:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iola17/pseuds/iola17
Summary: 'Today is going to be perfect. Patrick is going to make it perfect because that’s precisely what David deserves.'As Patrick prepares himself for the hike, he reflects on the past and looks forward to the future.





	Today

**Author's Note:**

> I was halfway through writing something else for this lovely couple when this idea kept knocking at my brain demanding to be written and, like David, I was powerless to resist Patrick Brewer.
> 
> Tagging David as a character as he features in a text exchange.
> 
> Not really much plot here, just Patrick getting ready for a Very Important Day.

When his alarm sounds early on his day off, Patrick has already been staring at the ceiling in the growing light for fifty minutes.

His hand shoots out to silence the alarm on his phone before the beeping can increase in volume and swings his legs out of bed.

A deep inhale. Today’s the day.

The two backpacks he had dug out of the closet last night are lying on the table ready to pack for the picnic hike and he mentally goes through the checklist again.

Shower, get dressed, sandwiches, cheese, fruit, chips, chocolate, cake, ice packs, champagne. Rings.

They’ve been sitting in his bedside table for the past four days since he picked them up from the jewellers in Elmdale. He’d snuck around the neighbouring town like a burglar, terrified that someone he knew would see him and word would get back to David that he’d been seen lurking around a jewellery store.

At least Stevie had been on board to cover for him with David, going along with his story that they had another dance rehearsal so he could disappear from the store for a couple of hours.

He didn’t feel great lying to David but it was a necessary evil and when the jeweller had opened the box to show Patrick his purchase his breath had hitched.

They were perfect. Just as he’d imagined. Exactly like David’s four signature silver rings but in solid shining gold.

There had been so many heart-stopping moments involved in getting his hands on these rings but it completely worth it.

First of all he’d had to wait until David had taken the rings off to take a shower (reluctantly turning down David coyly asking if Patrick wanted to join him) so he could trace around the rings on a sheet of paper for the jeweller to work out the sizes. His hand had been shaking as he anxiously listened for noises from the bathroom, terrified David would emerge without warning, having forgotten something essential for his skincare routine and demand to know what Patrick was doing.

Then, when he had tried to go into Elmdale to visit the jewellers with the specifications, he had chosen the cover story that he had a meeting with the bank manager in Elmdale in front of the whole Rose family and Mr Rose had insisted on coming along. He said he had a business matter to deal with himself in Elmdale bank so why not share a car?

Put on the spot he couldn’t think of a single reason to refuse, which is how Patrick had found himself staging an awkward argument with a bemused bank employee about a ‘lost appointment’ that absolutely had to be with the bank manager and no one else. Patrick had ended up having to make ‘another’ appointment as the bank manager was off site that day, and had then sat on one of the chairs in the foyer quietly dying while Mr Rose sorted out the overdraft and withdrawal limit on his new business account before they could leave.

(He’d called later to cancel the appointment and apologise profusely to Miranda, the bank employee he’d left confused and flustered. To his relief, she had been very forgiving when he explained the situation.)

The stress was not over once he’d got the rings home. There had been a tense moment a couple of nights ago when David opened the drawer where they were hidden searching for his spare phone charger but fortunately he did not spot the box tucked under small pile of utility bills at the back.

To distract David from investigating the drawer any further Patrick had ended up pushing his boyfriend onto his back and climbing onto the bed with him.

David forgot about the charger and Patrick forgot about the chicken he had in the oven until the smoke alarm interrupted them.

As he showers, Patrick smiles at the memory of David, startling at the blaring alarm to sit bolt upright on the bed, shirtless, tearing himself away from Patrick’s lips. They dealt with the ruined chicken, opened the windows to avoid the alarm sounding again, and went back to bed, deciding to order a pizza after they’d finished what they’d started.

Before David, sex was always something to check off a to-do list. He did it because he should do it. He should want to sleep with his beautiful, sweet girlfriend so he did but he’d never really got what the big fuss was about. And the times when he claimed he had a headache, he was too tired, work has been stressful, Rachel would gently kiss him and tell him that it was okay, there was more to their relationship than sex.

Guilt had twisted in his stomach each time at his lies. But how could he tell her he just didn’t feel like it? She really had deserved more than what he could give her.

So he’d tried to give her more. Vacations, and gifts, and their names side by side on a lease.

Eventually, because it had been more than a decade and because the gentle hints from everyone he knew had started to become more blatant (an increase in the number of ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ episodes recorded on TV, friends teasing him on nights out about how Brewer can’t lock his girlfriend down even after ten years, comments from his mother about _Remember such-and-such a person you went to high school with? He’s married now! His wife’s having a baby next year_) he had done what everyone had expected of him.

He had reasoned that it must be this way for everyone. Maybe the whole world felt like they following a script laid out for them whether or not they were all that sure about the plotline.

And he had loved Rachel. How could he not? She had been the first girl to look at him, the first kiss, the first fearful fumble in his childhood bedroom, the first everything. She was kind, considerate and outgoing.

She deserved the life that she had wanted since she was a little girl and if she had chosen him to give her that life? Well, he owed her that after taking ten years of her time.

But then every conversation about allergy-friendly menus caused his vision to go black at the edges; every appointment to look at venues was hurriedly cancelled at the last minute because of a fabricated work emergency; every attempt to set a date had him fumbling for increasingly desperate excuses about why they couldn’t possibly get married that day (_It’s very close to Christmas, I don’t think out-of-town family will want to travel so far during the holidays._)

Finally she had asked him the question that had been bouncing around his head for months.

When the question was spoken out loud, he couldn’t avoid the answer.

_No. No, Rachel, I don’t want to get married._

The words fell and lay between them and it was silent for a long time after that.

Until it wasn’t.

Sobbing and confusion and why, why, why? He could have handled it better if she’d screamed at him rather than look up at him as she did with anguished eyes and wet, blotchy cheeks.

That last, tearful night ended with her engagement ring lying on the table where neither of them had the courage to look at it for too long. He didn't take it with him when he left.

He packed what he could in a couple of suitcases and drove out of town bound for a place he’d never heard of (and which kind of sounded made-up) but where an internet search revealed that a guy named Ray was renting a room and looking for a business liaison to help him with this incorporation company. Immediate availability.

Since closing the door of his and Rachel’s flat behind him for the final time, he had carried guilt around like a weight strapped to his back. Unsure why he couldn’t make himself feel how he should, but knowing that he couldn’t subject either of them to any more of the back and forth, he had sent her enough of his savings to cover his half of the rent for the remaining five months on the lease and made a clean break.

He was painfully, gut-wrenchingly aware of how he had hurt her but he was a decade too late to save her heart from breaking.

Then he’d met David, and long-pushed aside puzzle pieces fell into place. _This _was why it hadn’t worked with Rachel. _This _was the part of him that he’d somehow missed all those years.

Sex was no longer something to slot into a schedule. Finally Patrick got it. He understood the enthusiasm for another person’s body that most people probably discover in their late teens but Patrick uncovered somewhere around the time David first pushed him against the wall in the storeroom and Patrick could _feel _David’s solid, masculine frame against his own.

Before that moment he had felt a keen interest in what David Rose had underneath his sweaters but when David had nuzzled into his neck and slotted a thigh between Patrick’s, that interest exploded into fierce desire that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to satiate. So _this _was what the fuss was about.

After the ill-fated barbeque he’d had a chance to speak to Rachel, knowing he owed her at least that. Despite his worry about what would happen with David, when he told her the truth, it was like setting down the heavy weight that he’d been carrying since he left her.

_I’m gay._

Saying the words out loud, he watched the light of understanding enter her eyes as questions from the past finally had an answer that made sense. They were both cut free and could move on to the something else that was waiting. They had more to talk about but at least she knew the truth.

He hoped she found who she was looking for one day. He hoped he hadn’t ruined that opportunity for her.

Compared to how he felt before asking Rachel to marry him, the sensation he feels this morning is so different. The bubbling nerves and anticipation that churn in his stomach as he dresses and shaves is exciting and electric rather than uncomfortable and faintly nauseating. Far from dreading the moment when his partner answers the question, he wants the ‘yes’ so much his hands are shaking.

He’s nervous, of course. Maybe David isn’t ready yet, maybe he won’t get the answer he wants so badly.

He swallows, and takes a deep breath, trying not to let that thought burrow too deeply. David wanted to move in with him months ago, David thinks they’ll be together years from now, David loves him. And despite having been burned so often in the past, so frequently used and discarded, underestimated and unappreciated, he knows David wants stability and commitment.

Their relationship is thriving and Patrick has never felt so much overwhelming adoration and devotion for another person. It’s a little terrifying and a lot thrilling.

Today is going to be perfect. Patrick is going to make it perfect because that’s precisely what David deserves.

Once he’s folded the best non-itchy blanket he has into a waiting backpack, he gets to work on preparing the picnic.

Patrick makes a small selection of sandwiches and slices the four different types of cheese he bought from the store yesterday into bite-size chunks. He packs a Tupperware with strawberries, grapes and melon and picks out a couple of apples from the fruit bowl. David’s favourite chips and a selection of cake and chocolate have been waiting on the kitchen counter and carefully Patrick packs it all into the bags, tucking an icepack beside the cheese to keep it cool. The champagne goes in next to another icepack and Patrick puts two plastic flutes in.

David may consider drinking a celebratory toast (God, Patrick hopes they’ll have something to celebrate) out of plastic glasses to be incorrect but Patrick cannot think of a safe way to pack the delicate glass flutes from the cupboard. He’s counting on David being too happy to care. He wants to make David so happy for the rest of their lives.

And the final touch - he tucks the four identical rings in their velvet box into the front pocket of the backpack he’s going to carry and double checks the zip. It wouldn’t do to have them falling out halfway up a mountain or for David to spot the box peeping out.

The bags are full and the first aid kit is still sitting on the counter. Patrick eyes it and then the backpacks, considering.

He’s been on this hike dozens of times, it’s not too difficult and he’s never hurt himself before. David may not be used to the walk, but Patrick can help him and it never gets too steep. Making the decision, he closes the bags.

Pulling out his phone he shoots off a quick text.

**To: David**

**Sent: 10.13am**

_On my way. See you in 10._

David always has his phone within arm’s reach so it’s unsurprising when the incoming text alert chimes thirty seconds later.

**From: David**

**Received: 10.14am**

_Cant wait. Dont come in mom will force us to take programmes to fold. Ill meet you outside. Hope you brought enough cheese! Love you_

**To: David**

**Sent: 10.14am**

_Love you. I’ll text when I get there. Or do you want me to honk?_

**From: David**

**Received: 10.15am**

_No. Do not honk._

**To: David**

**Sent: 10.15am**

_Incorrect?_

**From: David**

**Received: 10.15am**

_Yes. Very.  
_

Patrick smiles and pushes his phone back into his pocket. Time to go.

He heaves one backpack onto his back and loops the straps of the other over his forearm to take it down to the car. Grabbing his keys he closes the door of the flat and locks it behind him.

One more deep breath and he’s on his way, hoping that when he returns later it’s with his brand-new fiancé at his side.


End file.
